The Student Life of Pomona College in Pomona, Calif., put together recommendations for great American road trips.
Here’s the segment about Route 66. What do you see wrong with it?
With the California gold rush and the advent of the automobile, Americans began to long for an independent way to the alluring West. Established in 1926, Route 66 linked Chicago and Los Angeles in what was the first official US highway system. It may no longer be a US highway, but you can still trace historical Route 66 backwards along its traditionally east-to-west route. To kick off your trip in true Route 66 style, check out the Route 66 Territory Museum in Rancho Cucamonga. If you want to stay true to the 1920s route, check out www.historic66.com for detailed directions: you’ll start out in Santa Monica, make your way east on National Trails Highway, and take the I-40 east into Arizona. From there, you’ll pass through Arizona, New Mexico, the northernmost part of Texas, and Oklahoma; then move north through Kansas and Missouri, ending up in Chicago. En route, stop in Albuquerque, N.M. for a meal at the Route 66 Diner, and check out Williams, Ariz. for a stroll down its historic main street. In Tulsa, Okla., be sure to stop at the World’s Largest Praying Hands at the entrance to Oral Roberts University. Or stop by the Cow Chip Throwing Capital of the World — Beaver, Okla. — for flinging “the frisbees of the prairie.” In St. Louis, walk across the route’s original Old Chain of Rocks Bridge built in 1925. If, at this point, you’re afraid you’ll never reach a big city again, Chicago’s Sears Tower, beautiful lakefront, and the free Lincoln Park Zoo aren’t far away.
If you mentioned Beaver, Okla., you guessed right.
Beaver is in the Oklahoma Panhandle and is about 120 miles from the closest point of Route 66, which would be south to Shamrock, Texas. And Beaver isn’t a quick jaunt, either. Getting there requires traveling on slower two-lane roads.
Route 66 News likes side trips as much as the next person. However, we have trouble fathoming why anyone would detour 2 1/2 hours one-way from their main journey to see a once-a-year event of people throwing cow turds. It’s not as if the Mother Road doesn’t have odd festivals of its own.
A few Route 66 related side trips that could be interesting include, Will Rogers birthsite in Oolagah, OK. Frank Phillips, founder of Phillips 66, home in Bartlesville, and Woolaroc, his ranch, south west of Bartlesville. And Woody Guthie’s birthplace Okemah, OK. Go there the right time of year and you can see their annual rattlesnake roundup.
Not to mention this: “Route 66 Territory Museum in Rancho Cucamonga”
That has not existed, to my knowledge, in something like 7 years. Talk about outdated research.
They also got the date for the building of the COR bridge wrong.